More Rat Poison Found in Pet Food

To complicate the ongoing saga of tainted pet food produced by Menu Foods, here in New York, the food has been found to contain aminopterin, a rat poison.

Three sample of cat food were tested at Cornell University, where the dean of veterinary medicine says that the 16 deaths so far are a low number and that the incidents should rise significantly because of the high toxicity of the compound. The verified 40 parts per million will cause kidney failure and death in cats and dogs.

The company has since expanded the recall to include cans and pouches of pet food that were manufactured at any time, not just the Dec. 3rd through March 6th window.

The New York State Animal Health Diagnostic Center at the University and the New York State Food Laboratory found aminopterin in two of the three sample. These labs work together as part of the unit set up by New York after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Their purpose is to keep the human and animal food supplies safe from tampering.

The officials have prefaced their findings by stating that it is not a risk for pet owners to handle the tainted food because this compound was also at one time used as a cancer drug, and it was also used to induce abortions. Even though it is used to kill rats in other countries, it is not used for that purpose in the United States.

Originally the FDA focused on the wheat gluten in the pet food, thinking that it had been contaminated. But now with these new findings tampering comes into play because Bob Rosenberg of the National Pest Management Association feels that growers wouldn't spray whole crops with rodenticide. They just protect their grain silos with rodent bait stations.

Menu Foods Income Fund which owns Menu Foods, saw a free fall of their stock price by forty-five per cent earlier this week. They are now facing innumerable lawsuits from distraught pet owners, while at the same time they are still manufacturing at the two identified plants, one in New Jersey and one in Kansas. Sixty million cans and pouches of pet food have been recalled so far, encompassing ninety-five brands and private label pet foods from the expensive like Iams and Eukanuba, to the cheaper priced like Cadillac, Price Chopper and Winn Dixie.

The latest death was a Yorkshire terrier in Sherman Oaks, California, while a woman in Beaufort S.C. has spent over $1,000 buying up pet food to keep it from getting in the hands of consumers.

"Woman Buys Up Tainted Pet Food to Help" AP URL: (http://news.aol.com/strange/story/_a/woman-buys-up-tainted-pet-food-to-help/n20070322225109990018?cid=936)
MARK JOHNSON "Rat Poison Found in Recalled Pet Food" AP URL: (http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/rat-poison-found-in-recalled-pet-food/20070323113009990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001)